11 ms·

UNIX, as a viable OS model, isn't the last word in operating system design. It has too much design decisions and other baggage rooted in technology dating back

UNIX, as a viable OS model, isn't the last word in operating system design. It has too much design decisions and other baggage rooted in technology dating back to the 1970s. As Rob Pike, one of the people who worked on UNIX, said "Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." On top of that, Linux essentially sucked all the air out of the UNIX development space by killing off all the commercial UNIXes. Carrying Linux forward rests largely on the shoulders of the kernel team and whatever contributions other businesses feel like making. So where is the next major OS coming from? Google and Microsoft are the last two companies with the talent to build a future OS and enough resources and clout to push it enough to get traction. (In theory, it could also come from the community but people like Linus only come along once in a generation.)

jcoffland 10y ago
> Linux essentially sucked all the air out of the UNIX development space by killing off all the commercial UNIXes. Only because they have done a really good job.
- E6300 10y ago
  More like because they've done a good-enough job and because most distributions are free of charge. (Don't get your knickers in a knot. I'm not banging on Linux.)
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    Actually the free of charge aspect limited uptake of Linux in the commercial sector for a long time. It has it's faults but Linux won by being a great software.
- cwyers 10y ago
  Eh. The biggest thing Linux had going for it in terms of winning market share was running on commodity x86 parts in a time period when the commercial Unices weren't touching it, and x86 made really strong gains in beating everybody else at performance per dollar.
  - sedachv 10y ago
    > The biggest thing Linux had going for it in terms of winning market share was running on commodity x86 parts in a time period when the commercial Unices weren't touching it From the 1980s to 1993 there were: v7 ports: Microsoft Xenix (later became SCO), Venix, Coherent System III ports: PC/IX (later 386/ix) SVR3 ports: official Intel, ESIX from Everex SVR4 ports: Dell UNIX, Novell UnixWare, Microport
    - rbanffy 10y ago
      Also AIX (ran for some time on PS/2 machines), NeXTSTEP (3.1+ ran on PCs)... The list is, actually, quite extensive.
    - cwyers 10y ago
      Okay? Red Hat Enterprise Linux wasn't released until 2000, so I don't know what Microsoft's late-80s UNIX distribution has to do with it. Google was running Linux from the early days, and they launched in 1998, which is nearly a decade after Xenix stopped being updated. EDIT: Yes, Linux has its origins sooner, and if you want to know why Linux beat the BSDs to mindshare, what was going on in 1993 is very important. But Linux wasn't competing for mindshare with Xenix, it was stuff like Solaris (which did have an x86 port, but was mostly running on SPARC), AIX (which was mostly IBM big-iron and POWER), HP-UX (which was PA-RISC and IA-64), etc.
      - sedachv 10y ago
        If you want to talk about post-1993, saying that Linux won because there weren't any commercial x86 Unices makes even less sense. Xenix did not stop being updated, it became SCO UNIX. SCO bought and continued to sell UnixWare from Novell in 1995. x86 Solaris came out in 1993, but Sun actually had an x86 Unix since 1991 when they bought ISC.
      - jcoffland 10y ago
        Red Hat was rather late to the game. Both Debian and Slackware came out 7 years earlier in 1993.
- Someone 10y ago
  Linux wasn't really good before it became popular. I think it won because it offered neutral grounds (a place where lots of players who don't have huge market power can meet without fear of being swindled) and, partly, out of luck (you could call it 'good timing', but I don't think Linus considered that)
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    What OS was really good before quite a few iterations?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Arizhel 10y ago
>On top of that, Linux essentially sucked all the air out of the UNIX development space by killing off all the commercial UNIXes. For good reason too. The commercial UNIXes were absurdly expensive, and they were all incompatible with each other too. There's a reason all the software developers abandoned UNIX and went to Windows. UNIX killed itself with ridiculous license fees and fragmentation. Linux saved it by making it free, open-source, and unifying it and using common standards instead of a bunch of vendors trying to make their own hoping to gain marketshare and ending up losing everything to MS. Of course, this hasn't prevented Linux from having its own share of fragmentation (the different DEs chiefly), but it's nothing like the UNIX Wars of the 80s.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Yes, because we all know how compatible each GNU/Linux distribution are among themselves.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    A lot of differences are pretty superficial.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      You mean like package formats, audio subsystems, configuration files that didn't exist on original UNIX, window managers, init systems, ...
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        Lets start with package formats, people discuss this matter as if it were building an app for ios vs android. 99.999% of the work is the application. Package formats are just different sets of instructions for building the same source code the works ultimately on any system so long as its required libraries are present. Continuing on with audio, virtually everyone uses pulseaudio. JACK is pretty much reserved for audio production and is its own animal. The majority of configuration files are similar/the same, most differences are minor. For good or ill most distros are adopting systemd. Window managers or desktop environments are just components virtually all of which are able to be run on any distribution. Got any more?
binarycrusader 10y ago
"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." That's not an opinion necessarily shared by others who worked on UNIX and still do in some cases. Certainly, there are commercial UNIX releases today that have relatively recent innovations and capabilities that still aren't available in other operating systems.
reggieband 10y ago
> Google and Microsoft are the last two companies with the talent to build a future OS and enough resources and clout to push it enough to get traction. I think that is a stretch. Apple has significant investment in Darwin and are a huge contributor to LLVM. Also, don't count out Amazon ... they have their fingers in so many pies these days ...
- spdionis 10y ago
  Amazon is way too business and money oriented to make such a long term and risky investment.
  - aanm1988 10y ago
    That's a pretty ridiculous statement. Amazon won't dump money into BS just because, but they are absolutely willing to take big risks if the payoff is there.
    - spdionis 10y ago
      Both big risk and long term? I don't think so. They're not a company with much philosophical vision. They provide good, useful, services to make money. That's not enough to start a successful operating system. I don't mean to bash Amazon. They do well what they do, at the scale they have. I only think the project would not fit the company as it is now.
      - aanm1988 10y ago
        I'm saying you fundamentally misunderstand Amazon. The entire thing is based on long term thinking. It's why they spent decades building out a massive logistics infrastructure instead of turning a profit. It's why they spend tons on robotics, drones, and grocery stores that can eb run without people. They have been manufacturing tablets for years. They built kindle. They built a (disaster of a) phone. Amazon doesn't waste money just because. But if they saw the potential return in developing an OS (say they decide that having a custom OS as their base for AWS) they are absolutely the type of company that would pursue it.
aanm1988 10y ago
Apple? Amazon does release a modified Android. They could probably spend the money and get there. Doesn't oracle do a fair bit of linux work? Red hat as well. Building a new OS they do have the knowledge at least. IBM?
milesrout 10y ago
Have you ever used a Microsoft product? Have you ever tried to get support for a Google product? You do not want these companies involved in your operating system.
- cozicoolmail 10y ago
  Who does that leave to help with your OS? Apple? Their support is pretty bad too.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    What about, the people that made it in the first place? The support I've had from companies like Red Hat is unparalleled.
    - jasonvorhe 10y ago
      If you pay a monthly subscription.

jcoffland 10y ago

> Linux essentially sucked all the air out of the UNIX development space by killing off all the commercial UNIXes. Only because they have done a really good job.

E6300 10y ago
More like because they've done a good-enough job and because most distributions are free of charge. (Don't get your knickers in a knot. I'm not banging on Linux.)
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Actually the free of charge aspect limited uptake of Linux in the commercial sector for a long time. It has it's faults but Linux won by being a great software.
cwyers 10y ago
Eh. The biggest thing Linux had going for it in terms of winning market share was running on commodity x86 parts in a time period when the commercial Unices weren't touching it, and x86 made really strong gains in beating everybody else at performance per dollar.
- sedachv 10y ago
  > The biggest thing Linux had going for it in terms of winning market share was running on commodity x86 parts in a time period when the commercial Unices weren't touching it From the 1980s to 1993 there were: v7 ports: Microsoft Xenix (later became SCO), Venix, Coherent System III ports: PC/IX (later 386/ix) SVR3 ports: official Intel, ESIX from Everex SVR4 ports: Dell UNIX, Novell UnixWare, Microport
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    Also AIX (ran for some time on PS/2 machines), NeXTSTEP (3.1+ ran on PCs)... The list is, actually, quite extensive.
  - cwyers 10y ago
    Okay? Red Hat Enterprise Linux wasn't released until 2000, so I don't know what Microsoft's late-80s UNIX distribution has to do with it. Google was running Linux from the early days, and they launched in 1998, which is nearly a decade after Xenix stopped being updated. EDIT: Yes, Linux has its origins sooner, and if you want to know why Linux beat the BSDs to mindshare, what was going on in 1993 is very important. But Linux wasn't competing for mindshare with Xenix, it was stuff like Solaris (which did have an x86 port, but was mostly running on SPARC), AIX (which was mostly IBM big-iron and POWER), HP-UX (which was PA-RISC and IA-64), etc.
    - sedachv 10y ago
      If you want to talk about post-1993, saying that Linux won because there weren't any commercial x86 Unices makes even less sense. Xenix did not stop being updated, it became SCO UNIX. SCO bought and continued to sell UnixWare from Novell in 1995. x86 Solaris came out in 1993, but Sun actually had an x86 Unix since 1991 when they bought ISC.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      Red Hat was rather late to the game. Both Debian and Slackware came out 7 years earlier in 1993.
Someone 10y ago
Linux wasn't really good before it became popular. I think it won because it offered neutral grounds (a place where lots of players who don't have huge market power can meet without fear of being swindled) and, partly, out of luck (you could call it 'good timing', but I don't think Linus considered that)
- jcoffland 10y ago
  What OS was really good before quite a few iterations?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Arizhel 10y ago

>On top of that, Linux essentially sucked all the air out of the UNIX development space by killing off all the commercial UNIXes. For good reason too. The commercial UNIXes were absurdly expensive, and they were all incompatible with each other too. There's a reason all the software developers abandoned UNIX and went to Windows. UNIX killed itself with ridiculous license fees and fragmentation. Linux saved it by making it free, open-source, and unifying it and using common standards instead of a bunch of vendors trying to make their own hoping to gain marketshare and ending up losing everything to MS. Of course, this hasn't prevented Linux from having its own share of fragmentation (the different DEs chiefly), but it's nothing like the UNIX Wars of the 80s.

pjmlp 10y ago
Yes, because we all know how compatible each GNU/Linux distribution are among themselves.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  A lot of differences are pretty superficial.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You mean like package formats, audio subsystems, configuration files that didn't exist on original UNIX, window managers, init systems, ...
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      Lets start with package formats, people discuss this matter as if it were building an app for ios vs android. 99.999% of the work is the application. Package formats are just different sets of instructions for building the same source code the works ultimately on any system so long as its required libraries are present. Continuing on with audio, virtually everyone uses pulseaudio. JACK is pretty much reserved for audio production and is its own animal. The majority of configuration files are similar/the same, most differences are minor. For good or ill most distros are adopting systemd. Window managers or desktop environments are just components virtually all of which are able to be run on any distribution. Got any more?

binarycrusader 10y ago

"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." That's not an opinion necessarily shared by others who worked on UNIX and still do in some cases. Certainly, there are commercial UNIX releases today that have relatively recent innovations and capabilities that still aren't available in other operating systems.

reggieband 10y ago

> Google and Microsoft are the last two companies with the talent to build a future OS and enough resources and clout to push it enough to get traction. I think that is a stretch. Apple has significant investment in Darwin and are a huge contributor to LLVM. Also, don't count out Amazon ... they have their fingers in so many pies these days ...

spdionis 10y ago
Amazon is way too business and money oriented to make such a long term and risky investment.
- aanm1988 10y ago
  That's a pretty ridiculous statement. Amazon won't dump money into BS just because, but they are absolutely willing to take big risks if the payoff is there.
  - spdionis 10y ago
    Both big risk and long term? I don't think so. They're not a company with much philosophical vision. They provide good, useful, services to make money. That's not enough to start a successful operating system. I don't mean to bash Amazon. They do well what they do, at the scale they have. I only think the project would not fit the company as it is now.
    - aanm1988 10y ago
      I'm saying you fundamentally misunderstand Amazon. The entire thing is based on long term thinking. It's why they spent decades building out a massive logistics infrastructure instead of turning a profit. It's why they spend tons on robotics, drones, and grocery stores that can eb run without people. They have been manufacturing tablets for years. They built kindle. They built a (disaster of a) phone. Amazon doesn't waste money just because. But if they saw the potential return in developing an OS (say they decide that having a custom OS as their base for AWS) they are absolutely the type of company that would pursue it.

aanm1988 10y ago

Apple? Amazon does release a modified Android. They could probably spend the money and get there. Doesn't oracle do a fair bit of linux work? Red hat as well. Building a new OS they do have the knowledge at least. IBM?

milesrout 10y ago

Have you ever used a Microsoft product? Have you ever tried to get support for a Google product? You do not want these companies involved in your operating system.

cozicoolmail 10y ago
Who does that leave to help with your OS? Apple? Their support is pretty bad too.
- milesrout 10y ago
  What about, the people that made it in the first place? The support I've had from companies like Red Hat is unparalleled.
  - jasonvorhe 10y ago
    If you pay a monthly subscription.